Round Table. Research for Development. Where is it heading in the ICT context?

Javier Simó, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain)

Not theories, but practice: research should be aimed at creating an impact, at appliying into reality what has been researched and the outcomes of that research, such as in Health.

ICTs should be a tool to reach higher levels of efficiency and efficacy. And they should not deal with avant-garde and state-of-the-art technology, but on what are the best tools available to make a change in developing countries.

Beatriz Novales, Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development AECID (Spain)

ICTs can be very helpful to development cooperation agencies, especially in the following areas:

Decentralization, creating cooperation networks.

New management of human resources, in more and better training.

Procedures and organizational strategies.

Transparency and accountability.

Harmonization of a complex system.

Discussion

Arturo Velasco (ESF): How should we measure research in ICT4D? Ismael Peña-López: Richad Heeks has been reflecting on ICT4D research in its very worth reading him. We surely have to move from “impact” (as usually measured) towards citations and “usefulness” of that research as assessed by both researchers and practitioners. Javier Simó: We have to change the ways we assess research and certify it, so that “cool topics” are not rated over less trendy topics (i.e. development). Manuel de Oliveira: we should not only assess what is “publishable”, but what is interesting.

Valentín Villarroel: what are the priority projects? how to foster them? Manuel de Oliveira: the role of the scholar has to be reinvented. Business models are a priority in developing countries.

Q: what is the flexibility between doing research to advance a discipline and to advance people? Jordi Aguiló: we should do one thing at a time, we are either researchers or practitioners; we do research in top-research or we do innovation for development. But we cannot play both games [I absolutely disagree with this point of view].

I International Workshop on Research in ICT for Human Development (2010)